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RISE OF EUROPEAN PIRACY IN THE EAST

CAPTAIN KIDD

THE RISE OF CONAJEE ANGRIA

AN ACTIVE GOVERNOR

THE COMPANY'S SERVANTS

The Company's civil servants--Their comparison with English who went to America--Their miserable salaries--The Company's military servants--Regarded with distrust--Shaxton's mutiny--Captain Keigwin--Broken pledges and ill-treatment--Directors' vacillating policy--Military grievances--Keigwin seizes the administration of Bombay--His wise rule--Makes his submission to the Crown--Low status of Company's military officers--Lord Egmont's speech--Factors and writers as generals and colonels--Bad quality of the common soldiers--Their bad treatment--Complaint against Midford--Directors' parsimony ...

EXPEDITION AGAINST KENNERY

EXPEDITION AGAINST GHERIAH

EXPEDITION AGAINST COLABA

Measures taken in England against pirates--Woodes Rogers at the Bahamas--Edward Teach--Challoner Ogle--Bartholomew Roberts killed--Matthews sent to the East Indies--Naval officers' duels--Portuguese alliance--Expedition against Colaba--Assault--Defeat--A split in the alliance--Plot against Boone--His departure--Matthews' schemes--His insulting behaviour--He quarrels with everybody--Goes to Madagascar--The King of Ranter Bay--Matthews goes to Bengal ...

A TROUBLED YEAR IN BOMBAY

THE DOWNFALL OF ANGRIA

Toolajee fights successful action with the Dutch--He tries to make peace with Bombay--Alliance formed against him--Commodore William James--Slackness of the Peishwa's fleet--Severndroog--James's gallant attack--Fall of Severndroog--Council postpone attack on Gheriah--Clive arrives from England--Projects of the Directors--Admiral Watson--Preparations against Gheriah--The Council's instructions--Council of war about prize-money--Double dealing of the Peishwa's officers--Watson's hint--Ships engage Gheriah--Angrian fleet burnt--Fall of Gheriah--Clive occupies the fort--The prize-money--Dispute between Council and Poonah Durbar--Extinction of coast piracy--Severndroog tower ...

AN ENGLISHWOMAN IN INDIA TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO

MAHRATTA GRABS AND GALLIVATS ATTACKING AN ENGLISH SHIP. MAP OF MALABAR COAST.

THE PIRATES OF MALABAR

From the first days of European enterprise in the East, the coasts of India were regarded as a favourable field for filibusters, the earliest we hear of being Vincente Sodre, a companion of Vasco da Gama in his second voyage. Intercourse with heathens and idolaters was regulated according to a different code of ethics from that applied to intercourse with Christians. The authority of the Old Testament upheld slavery, and Africans were regarded more as cattle than human beings; while Asiatics were classed higher, but still as immeasurably inferior to Europeans. To prey upon Mahommedan ships was simply to pursue in other waters the chronic warfare carried on against Moors and Turks in the Mediterranean. The same feelings that led the Spaniards to adopt the standard of the Cross in their conquest of Mexico and Peru were present, though less openly avowed, in the minds of the merchants and adventurers of all classes and nationalities who flocked into the Indian seas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. With the decadence of buccaneering and the growth of Indian trade, there was a corresponding increase of piracy, and European traders ceased to enjoy immunity.

The Company laid their grievance before the King, who expressed much concern, promising to write to the Great Mogul and explain matters; so the Company commenced an action against Bonnell and Kynaston in the Admiralty Court. Porter was too highly placed to be struck at. Bonnell evaded arrest and escaped to France, but Kynaston was arrested and lodged in gaol; upon which Charles ordered his release on bail, saying he would try the case himself at his leisure.

But Porter's views went beyond a single piratical voyage. Hardly had Cobb started on his cruise, when he entered into partnership with Sir William Courten for an association to establish a separate trade to the East Indies. A royal grant was obtained, and the King himself was credited with a share to the nominal extent of ?10,000. The grant was a flagrant breach of faith, and was the inauguration of the system of interlopers that in after years caused so much loss and trouble to the Company. Four ships were equipped and sent out, and before long it became known that two vessels from Surat and Diu had been plundered by Courten's ships, and their crews tortured. Again the Company's servants at Surat were seized and thrown into prison, where they were kept for two months, being only released on payment of Rs.1,70,000, and on solemnly swearing to respect Mogul ships.

The Civil War brought these courtly piracies to an end, and the decay of the Spanish power drew the more turbulent spirits of Europe and America to the Spanish main, so that for a time there was a diminution of European piracy in Indian waters. As buccaneering became more dangerous, or less lucrative, adventurers of all nations again appeared in Eastern waters, and the old trouble reappeared in an aggravated form. The Indian Red Sea fleet offered an especially tempting booty to the rovers. Lobo, a Jesuit priest, writing in the seventeenth century, tells us that so vast was the commerce of Jeddah, and so great the value of the ships trading to that place, that when, in India, it was wished to describe a thing of inestimable price, it was customary to say, 'It is of more value than a Jeddah ship.' Every year during the winter months, Indian traders, and pilgrims for Mecca, found their way in single ships to the Red Sea. On the setting in of the monsoon, they collected at Mocha, and made their way back in a single body. All Indian trade with the Red Sea was paid for in gold and silver, so that the returning ships offered many tempting prizes to freebooters.

In the same year, six men, of whom four were English and two Dutch, while on passage in a native merchant's ship from the Persian Gulf to Surat, seized the ship, killing the owner and his two wives. The lascars were thrown overboard, six being retained to work the ship. Their cruise did not last long. Making for Honore, they threw the six lascars overboard when nearing the port. The men managed to get to land, and reaching Honore, gave information of the would-be pirates to the local authorities, who seized the ship, and soon disposed of the rogues.

Three years later, two ships under English colours, mounting respectively forty-four and twenty guns, were reported to have captured vessels in the Red Sea, to the value of Rs.600,000. The Seedee of Jinjeera, who styled himself the Mogul's Admiral, received a yearly subsidy of four lakhs for convoying the fleet, a duty that he was quite unable to perform against European desperadoes. Public opinion at Surat was at once excited against the English, and further inflamed by the Dutch and French, who were only too anxious to see a rival excluded from the trade. Sir John Child, to pacify the Governor, offered to send a man-of-war to look for the pirates; but the Dutch and French factors continued to 'spitt their venom' till the Governor laughed in their faces and asked why they did not join in sending vessels to look for the rogues, since the matter seemed to them so serious.

The Armenian merchants were loud in their complaints. An Armenian ship, bound from Goa to Madras, with twenty thousand pagodas on board, was taken by a pirate ship of two hundred tons, carrying twenty-two guns and a crew of sixty men. Another Armenian ship, with fifty thousand xeraphims, was taken near Bombay, on its voyage from Goa to Surat. Besides those that beset the Malabar coast, there were pirates in the Persian Gulf, at the mouth of the Red Sea, and in the Mozambique Channel, while five pirate vessels were cruising off Acheen. During the next ten years the losses caused by the pirates were prodigious.

Ovington mentions that at St. Helena they were told, by a slaver, of three pirates, two English and the other Dutch, so richly laden with booty that they could hardly navigate their ships, which had become weather-beaten and unseaworthy from their long cruises off the Red Sea mouth. Their worn-out canvas sails were replaced with double silk.

"They were prodigal in the expences of their unjust gain, and quenched their thirst with Europe liquor at any rate this Commander would put upon it; and were so frank both in distributing their goods, and guzzling down the noble wine, as if they were both wearied with the possession of their rapine, and willing to stifle all the melancholy reflections concerning it."

Such an account was bound to fire the imagination of every seaman who heard it.

The number of pirates was increased by the interlopers, merchant adventurers trading without a licence, who, like John Hand, when they failed to get cargoes, plundered native ships. Their proceedings were imitated by the permission ships, vessels that held the Company's licence for a single voyage. Not seldom the crews of interlopers and permission ships rose and seized the vessel against the will of their owners and commanders and hoisted the Jolly Roger. Commissions were granted to the East India Company's commanders to seize interlopers; but the interlopers, as a rule, were remarkably well able to take care of themselves. As pirates and interlopers alike sailed under English colours, the whole odium fell on the English. In August, 1691, a ship belonging to the wealthy merchant, Abdul Guffoor, was taken at the mouth of the Surat river, with nine lakhs in hard cash on board. A guard was placed on the factory at Surat, and an embargo laid on English trade. As the pirate had shown the colours of several nationalities, the authorities were loth to proceed to extremities. Fortunately for the English Company, a member of the pirate crew was captured, and proved to be a Dane; so the embargo on English trade was taken off.

Though they plied their calling at sea, almost with impunity, the pirates occasionally fell victims to Oriental treachery on shore. Thus, James Gilliam, a rover, having put into Mungrole, on the Kattiawar coast, was made welcome and much praised for the noble lavishness with which he paid for supplies. Soon there came an invitation to a banquet, and Gilliam, with some of his officers and crew, twenty in all, were received by the representative of the Nawab of Junaghur with excessive ceremony. Much polite curiosity was evinced about the noble strangers. "Why did they always go armed? Were their muskets loaded? Would they discharge them to show their host the European method?" The muskets were discharged, and immediately the banquet was announced. "Delay to reload the muskets was inexpedient. It would be time to recharge their weapons after the feast." And then, when seated and defenceless, there was an irruption of armed men, and Gilliam, with his followers, were seized and fettered. For a year they lay at Junaghur, where two of them died. In vain Gilliam contrived to send a letter to the Surat factory, asking that they might be claimed as British subjects. President Harris knew that the least interest shown in the fate of the rovers would be fatal to the interests of the Company, and was relieved when he heard that they had been sent to Aurungzeeb's camp; after which they are heard of no more.

Some months were spent on the Guinea coast, where some negroes were captured, and five ships--three English and two Danish--were plundered and burnt. Before the end of the year Every was east of the Cape, intent on the Red Sea traders. The first intelligence of him that reached Bombay was in May, 1695, when three outward-bound merchantmen reported that they had seen him at Johanna.

"Your Honor's ships going into that island gave him chase, but he was too nimble for them by much, having taken down a great deale of his upper works and made her exceeding snugg, which advantage being added to her well sailing before, causes her to sail so hard now, that she fears not who follows her. This ship will undoubtedly into the Red Sea, which will procure infinite clamours at Surat."

Accompanying this report came the following characteristic letter from Every:--

"February y'e 28th, 1695/4.

"To all English. Commanders lett this Satisfye that I was Riding here att this Instant in y'e Ship fancy man of Warr formerly the Charles of y'e Spanish Expedition who departed from Croniae y'e 7th of May. 94: Being and am now in A Ship of 46 guns 150 Men & bound to Seek our fortunes I have Never as Yett Wronged any English or Dutch nor never Intend whilst I am Commander. Wherefore as I Commonly Speake w'th all Ships I Desire who ever Comes to y'e perusal of this to take this Signall that if you or aney whome you may informe are desirous to know w't wee are att a Distance then make your Antient Vp in a Ball or Bundle and hoyst him att y'e Mizon Peek y'e Mizon Being furled I shall answere w'th y'e same & Never Molest you: for my men are hungry Stout and Resolute: & should they Exceed my Desire I cannott help my selfe.

as Yett An Englishman's friend

HENRY EVERY."

"Here is 160 od french Armed men now att Mohilla who waits for Opportunity of getting aney ship, take Care of your Selves."

According to Van Broeck, he was a man of good natural disposition, who had been soured by the bad treatment he received at the hands of his relations. The letter shows him to have been a man of some education, and during his short but active career in the Indian seas he appears to have attacked native ships only. The Company's records do not mention the loss of a single English ship at Every's hands, a circumstance that no doubt told heavily against the English in native opinion at Surat.

The same ships that brought Every's letter to Sir John Gayer brought intelligence of a well-known French pirate having got aground at Mohilla. The three Company's ships watering at Johanna, heard of the occurrence, and proceeded to the spot, burnt the French ship after taking out what treasure was on board, and captured six of the Frenchmen, who were brought to Bombay. Every's friendly warning about the '160 od French armed men' evidently referred to the wrecked crew.

The value of Perim, or Bab's Key, as it was then called by mariners, to command the trade of the Red Sea, was at once perceived by Every, who attempted to make a settlement there. After some unprofitable digging for water, he abandoned the project, and established himself in Madagascar, which had before this become known as a pirate resort. During the next thirty years the only traders who dared show themselves on the Madagascar coast were those who did business with the pirates, owing to the number of pirate settlements that sprang up at different points; the best known being at St. Mary's Island, St. Augustine's, Port Dauphin, and Charnock's Point. They built themselves forts and established a reign of terror over the surrounding country, sometimes taking a part in native quarrels, and sometimes fighting among themselves; dubbing themselves kings, and living in squalid dignity with large seraglios of native women. Captain Woodes Rogers, who touched at Madagascar for slaves, sixteen years after Every's time, described those he met as having been on the islands above twenty-five years, with a motley crowd of children and grandchildren.

"Having been so many years upon this Island, it may be imagined their Cloaths had long been worn out, so that their Majesties were extremely out at the Elbows: I cannot say they were ragged, since they had no Cloaths, they had nothing to cover them but the Skins of Beasts without any tanning, but with all the Hair on, nor a Shoe nor Stocking, so they looked like the Pictures of Hercules in the Lion's Skin; and being overgrown with Beard, and Hair upon their Bodies, they appeared the most savage Figures that a Man's Imagination can frame."

One remarkable settlement was founded in the north, near Diego Suarez, by Misson, a Frenchman, and the most humane of pirates, with whom was allied Tew, the English pirate. Misson's aim was to build a fortified town "that they might have some place to call their own; and a receptacle, when age and wounds had rendered them incapable of hardship, where they might enjoy the fruits of their labour and go to their graves in peace." The settlement was named Libertatia. Slavery was not permitted, and freed slaves were encouraged to settle there. The harbour was strongly fortified, as a Portuguese squadron that attacked them found to its cost. A dock was made; crops were sown; a Lord Conservator was appointed for three years, with a Parliament to make laws. The colony was still in its infancy when it was surprised and destroyed by the natives, while Misson was away on a cruise; and so Libertatia came to an end. Tew succeeded in escaping to his sloop with a quantity of diamonds and gold in bars. On Misson rejoining him, they determined to go to America. Misson's ship foundered in a storm, while Tew made his way to Rhode Islands, and lived there for a time unquestioned. But the fascinations of a rover's life were too much for him. He fitted out a sloop and made again for the Red Sea, and was killed in action there with a Mogul ship.

From their Madagascar settlements the pirates scoured the east coast of Africa, the Indian Ocean as far as Sumatra, the mouth of the Red Sea, where the Mocha ships offered many rich prizes, the Malabar coast, and the Gulf of Oman. From time to time, ships from New England and the West Indies brought supplies and recruits, taking back those who were tired of the life, and who wished to enjoy their booty. European prisoners were seldom treated barbarously when there was no resistance, and the pirate crews found many recruits among captured merchantmen. Their worst cruelties were reserved for the native merchants of India who fell into their hands. They believed all native traders to be possessed of jewels, as was indeed often the case, and the cruellest tortures were inflicted on them to make them surrender their valuables. One unhappy Englishman we hear of, Captain Sawbridge, who was taken by pirates, while on a voyage to Surat with a ship-load of Arab horses from Bombay. His complaints and expostulations were so annoying to his captors that, after repeatedly telling him to hold his tongue, they took a sail needle and twine and sewed his lips together. They kept him thus several hours, with his hands tied behind him, while they plundered his ship, which they afterwards set on fire, burning her and the horses in her. Sawbridge and his people were carried to Aden and set on shore, where he died soon after.

"It is strange," wrote Sir John Gayer, "to see how almost all the merchants are incensed against our nation, reproaching the Governor extremely for taking our part, and as strange to see that notwithstanding all, he stems the stream against them more than well could be imagined, considering his extreme timorous nature."

The strangeness of the merchants' hostility is hardly apparent, but it is not too much to say that Itimad Khan's friendly behaviour alone saved English trade from extinction. The Dutch, always hostile in the East, whatever might be the relations between Holland and England in Europe, strove to improve the occasion by fomenting popular excitement, and tried to get the English permanently excluded from the Indian trade. In the words of Sir John Grayer, "they retained their Edomitish principles, and rejoice to see Jacob laid low." But Itimad Khan knew that the pirates were of all nationalities, and refused to hold the English alone responsible. To propitiate the Governor, Sir John Gayer made over to him the six French pirates taken at Mohilla, not without qualms at handing over Christians to Mahommedan mercies. He fully expected that the treasure taken out of the wreck would also be demanded of him; but Itimad Khan was not an avaricious man, and no such demand was made. "His contempt of money is not to be paralleled by any of the King's Umbraws or Governors," Sir John wrote, a year later, when Itimad Khan was dead. To forestall the Dutch with the Emperor, Gayer sent an agent offering to convoy the Red Sea fleet for the future, in return for a yearly payment of four lakhs a year. The offer was refused, but it served to place the English in a more favourable light, and to procure the cancelling of orders that had been given for attacking Bombay and Madras. Had it been accepted, the Seedee would have been added to the number of the Company's enemies. The Dutch, not to be outdone, offered to perform the same service in return for a monopoly of trade in the Emperor's dominions. This brought all other Europeans into line against the Dutch proposal, and the intrigue was defeated. The embargo on all European trade at Surat was maintained, while the Dutch, French, and English were directed to scour the seas and destroy the pirates. It was further ordered that Europeans on shore were not to carry arms or use palanquins, and their ships were forbidden to hoist their national flags. The Dutch and French hung back. They would not send a ship to sea without payment, except for their own affairs. Sir John Gayer, more wisely, sent armed ships to convoy the Mocha fleet, at the Company's charge, and so the storm passed off.

Meanwhile, Every, glutted with booty, made up his mind to retire with his enormous gains. According to Johnson, he gave the slip, at night, to his consorts, sailed for Providence in the Bahamas, where his crew dispersed, and thence made his way to England, just at the time a royal proclamation offering ?500 for his apprehension was published. The reward was doubled by an offer of four thousand rupees from the Company; eight rupees being the equivalent of a pound at that time. Several of his crew also straggled home and were captured; but before he left the Indian coast, twenty-five Frenchmen, fourteen Danes, and some English were put ashore, fearing to show themselves in Europe or America. This fact would seem to throw some doubt on the account of his having left his consorts by stealth.

On the 19th October, 1696, six of his crew were tried and sentenced at the Old Bailey, and a true bill was found and an indictment framed against Every himself, though he had not been apprehended. According to Johnson, Every changed his name and lived unostentatiously, while trying to sell the jewels he had amassed. The merchant in whose hands he had placed them, suspecting how they had been come by, threatened him. Every fled to Ireland, leaving his jewels in the merchant's hands, and finally died in Devonshire in extreme poverty. But the authority for this, as for most of the popular accounts of Every, is extremely doubtful. That he was cheated out of some of his ill-gotten gains is probable enough, but it is in the highest degree improbable that he was known to be living in poverty, and yet that the large reward offered for his apprehension was not earned. What is alone certain is that he was never apprehended, and that in a few months he carried off an amount of plunder such as never before was taken out of the Indian seas by a single rover. For long he was the hero of every seaport town in England and North America; innumerable legends gathered round his name, and an immense impulse was given to piracy.

The untrustworthiness of his crews placed Sir John Gayer in an awkward dilemma. He had to report to the Directors that he dared not send ships to convoy pilgrims lest the crews should mutiny; that a boat could not be manned in Bombay harbour for fear of desertion, while, on shore, he had not a soldier fit to be made a corporal. A powerful French squadron had appeared on the coast, and the Surat President calculated that the Company's recent losses on captured ships sailing from Surat amounted to a million sterling. The losses of the native merchants were even more serious; trade was almost at a standstill, while three more pirate ships from New York appeared in the Gulf of Cambay, and captured country ships to the value of four lakhs of rupees. Every letter along the coast at this date speaks of the doings of the rovers: every ship coming into harbour told of pirates, of chases and narrow escapes, and of reported captures.

"These pirates spare none but take all they meet, and take the Europe men into their own ships, with such goods as they like, and sink the ships, sending the lascars on rafts to find the shore."

So bold were the marauders that they cruised in sight of Bombay harbour, and careened their ships in sight of factories along the coast.

"You have sent me a letter," he wrote, "about my people taking one of your ships. It is true that I have done so, in return for one you English took from me, so now we are even and have ship for ship; for this one I will not surrender. If you wish to be friends, I am willing to be so; if not, I will fight you and take all the ships I can."

One pirate ship was reported to have chased two Cong ships, capturing one and forcing the other ashore, where it became a total wreck. "What influence this may have on the Rt. Hon. Company's affairs, God alone knows," wrote the Surat President, mournfully. Soon he was in better spirits. The same pirates had landed and plundered Cong; but, allowing themselves to be surprised, fifty-six of the crew had been set upon and killed.

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